


Vigil's End

by killabeez, Rose Singer (killabeez)



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Early Work, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode: s04e22 Sweet Revenge, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1997-05-01
Updated: 1997-05-01
Packaged: 2017-10-21 13:29:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killabeez/pseuds/killabeez, https://archiveofourown.org/users/killabeez/pseuds/Rose%20Singer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Immediately following "Sweet Revenge," Hutch reveals his feelings. Originally published in <i>The Fix 17.</i> Thank you so much to Morgan Dawn for sending it to me! Er, I think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vigil's End

It was a nice place to be, he thought. Very peaceful. Very tranquil up here in the dim, ambiguous space between waking and dreaming. Nothing to worry about, no problems to deal with—not even the relatively manageable ones like remembering his own name. Best of all, that awful fire alarm had gone blessedly silent. In this place, all sounds were quiet, unobtrusive, all colors were warm and unthreatening, and pain was only a distant memory. He wouldn’t have minded staying here.

There was just one problem, and it touched him now, nagging at him from some corner of awareness: he wasn’t alone.

For a time, he resisted that awareness and drifted. Whoever it was, they would go away. He didn’t want to leave this place—didn’t want to feel pain again when he tried to breathe, when he tried to talk. Didn’t want to leave the safe haven of his dreams.

But the presence didn’t go away. After a while, he became aware that there was one sound, small and indistinct, that needed his attention. Time for action, he thought, hearing it. Gotta wake up.

Gotta do somethin’ about that.

It took a lot of effort, and another unknown space of time. He worked at it; gradually the fog receded. Slowly, things got sharper—the pain first, of course—but other things, too. Smell. He could smell the antiseptic, pungent and unpleasant, and the fresh scent of flowers. Hospital, he thought. That particular combination of smells you just didn’t get anywhere else. Another smell, good, like food... something that made him want to smile with a memory he could almost touch.

There was pain, but not so much of it—just a dull throbbing in his head, less pronounced in his lungs and behind his ribs, lower down. He thought it would be all right; he could deal with it. The urgency was pushing him harder toward waking now. The sound—

All at once he could hear it, a soft, choking noise that repeated a moment later, He recognized what it was, and woke.

He blinked, and blinked again. For a second he didn’t remember much of anything, but there wasn’t anything wrong with his vision. He’d been right; he wasn’t alone.

 _Hutch,_ his brain supplied, the first coherent thought he could form.

Then the rest came flooding back, and he remembered for real. The gunshots. White agony slamming into him, Hutch shouting his name—and a long time afterward, the party in his room, the fire sprinklers. The nurse coming, chasing Dobey and Huggy out, Hutch helping her get him into dry clothes, getting him doped up again, sending him back into dreamland for God only knew how long. Last thing he’d heard—the nurse chasing Hutch out, too, telling him to go home and get some rest. So what was the man still doing here?

Starsky focused with some effort on the tall figure sprawled in the chair beside his bed. Hutch’s long legs were stretched out in front of him; his arms were crossed, like maybe he was cold. The blond head was bent close. But Hutch’s gaze was distant, distracted, not really seeing him. Starsky remembered, then, the sound he’d heard that had made him wake up.

But he must have been mistaken. The unfocused blue eyes were dry, clear, and Hutch wasn’t making the sound he’d thought he’d heard. His partner was, in fact, doing something else entirely. Softly, almost under his breath—but it was unmistakable.

Hutch was singing to him.

_“Once there was a way to get back home...”_

Starsky came all the way awake, tenderness and something else he didn’t name surging up in his throat. It made the ache in his lungs worse, but he didn’t much care right then. He tried to keep still, keep quiet, not let on that he was awake. He wanted to go on listening to that sweet tenor for a while. The melody was rough, hardly more than a whisper—but right then it sounded like the finest music he’d ever heard.

 _“Golden slumbers fill your eyes_  
Smiles await you when you rise.  
Sleep pretty darling, do not cry,  
and I will sing you a lullaby.”

Finally the lump in Starsky’s throat forced him to swallow. Hutch broke off immediately, mid-note. He gave Starsky a look of surprised chagrin. Then he began to blush hard, and his jaw set. Embarrassment warred with accusation in his face. “How long have you been awake?”

“Don’t stop.” Starsky’s voice came out a hoarse croak. It took effort to make the words come. “Love that song.”

Hutch looked like he couldn’t decide whether or not to be mortified at being caught out. Finally, he smiled tiredly. “Well, that’s all you’re gonna get of it, so I hope you were listening.”

Starsky managed a shadow of his usual teasing grin. “I was.”

Hutch shook his head in mock exasperation. Then he sobered, looked at Starsky closely. “How you feeling?”

That look wouldn’t allow anything but the truth, so Starsky gave it. “Like something even the cat wouldn’t drag in.” That made Hutch smile again, though Starsky saw it didn’ t entirely lift the shadows of fatigue and concern from his partner s face. He thought maybe a distraction was in order. “Thought you went home?”

“Nah. Too tired to drive. I just stayed out of the way in the lounge until the nurses were gone, and snuck back in here.”

“Couldn’t stay away, huh?”

“Guess not.” Hutch said it lightly, but his eyes dropped for a second, and Starsky saw he’d hit on the truth.

He tried to make a joke out of it. “Is it my vibrant personality?” He lifted a hand, indicating the wide swath of bandages covering most of his upper torso. “Or maybe my gorgeous physique—” But the motion proved too sudden, and he broke off, coughing. Pain throbbed with each spasm, dulled by the medication but enough to make him wince. He tried to stifle the coughs.

The spell passed, and he drew a breath cautiously. Hutch had taken his hand, was holding on to it too tightly, watching him.

Starsky tried to look exasperated. “S’okay. Stop lookin’ at me like I got one foot in the grave. I’m fine.” But Hutch didn’t let go of his hand, and Starsky suspected from the way his friend was looking at him that he’d gone paler than a ghost. “Honest,” he said more gently. I’m fine.”

Hutch blinked, finally seemed to realize he was still holding Starsky’s hand in a vise-like grip. He let go. “We should never have tried to have a party in here,” he said after a moment, face full of remorse. “It was too soon. You’re not strong enough.”

“Aw, cut it out, willya? Just got dehydrated is all—made me cough. Anyway, it’s been almost two weeks. Will you stop bein’ such an old lady? I got a mother f’that.”

“Yeah, well, she asked me to hold down the fort.”

“You talked to her?”

Hutch nodded, relaxing a little as Starsky’s color returned to almost normal. “Yeah, she called from your Aunt Rosie’s while you were asleep.”

“Hmpf. Drugged senseless, you mean.”

Starsky gave him that crooked, sleepy-eyed grin, and Hutch was seized by the overpowering desire to put his arms around the man, hug him, confirm the reality. God, they had come so close.

“Whatever.” He could only manage the one word, his throat too tight to permit more.

“Hutch?”

“Yeah?”

“Were you...?” Starsky hesitated. “A little while ago I thought I heard—”

“What?” Hutch held his breath. Had Starsky heard more than his singing?

“Nothin’. Just imaginin’ things I guess.”

“Maybe you were dreaming.” He thought maybe he was transparent, though, the way Starsky looked at him. For a long moment, their eyes held and Hutch couldn’t look away.

Finally, Starsky smiled, looking a little relieved. “Yeah, that must’ve been it.”

Hutch turned and picked up a cup and the pitcher of water from the night stand. “You want some water?” His voice came out all right, just a little rough around the edges.

“Sure.”

Hutch poured it, and his hands were mercifully steady. _Couldn’t stay away,_ Starsky had said, dangerously perceptive as always. But if he could keep it cool, maybe Starsky would never know the whole truth—that he’d come back to the hospital room because the thought of going home to his apartment alone had scared the crap out of him. Go home and lay in bed, when he was too tired to sleep? Give himself time to really think, for the first time since it happened? No, thank you.

Better to nap in a chair where he could watch his partner sleep, What he needed tonight was distraction from his own thoughts—and watching over Starsky was the best distraction he knew.

He set the pitcher down and turned to find Starsky watching him, uncharacteristically quiet. Hutch started to proffer the cup—then realized Starsky wouldn’t be able to manage by himself. For a second, he hesitated. But then he remembered the promise he’d made. He’d made it in desperation, and to a God he wasn’t sure he believed in, but a promise was a promise. Keeping vigil over Starsky’s bedside when he’d been sure in his heart that it was too late, he’d sworn to any deity who would listen that if only Starsky lived, he would fix everything. If only he could see that smile again, he would do everything in his power to make things between them what they once had been, whatever the cost to his hard-won equilibrium.

A promise was a promise.

It would start here, Hutch thought, with a straightforward task like helping his friend drink a glass of water.

He bent down, as easily as if such intimacy didn’t distress him at all, as if it didn’t affect him to put his arm around his friend’s waist, to support Starsky’s shoulders against his chest and hold the cup for him to drink. As if the feeling of that solid weight in his arms didn’t fill him with forbidden urges, too many to name.

And for a moment, it seemed like it would be that simple. Starsky accepted his supporting embrace without hesitation, as if it hadn’t been months since they’d been this easy with one another, this comfortable. As if it were the old days, when caring for one another like this was something they did all the time. As if there had never been anything but honesty between them.

Then Hutch bent his head, drawn beyond his will to brush the side of his face against Starsky’s hair just once, to breathe in the reality of him. It was a mistake. He knew it even as he did it, but he couldn’t stop himself. Too close to the urge he’d been damping down all evening—to take Starsky in his arms and hug him close, to kiss his hair and breathe thanks to whatever God or Providence had given him a second chance.

For an instant he closed his eyes, let the belief, the relief well up.

Then he realized he was trembling, holding on too tight—Starsky made a small wheezing noise of protest. Hutch stiffened. “Sorry.” He let go, eased Starsky back down onto the pillows. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to—” He floundered, not sure what to say, and drew back too quickly. He felt Starsky’s eyes on him, but couldn’t meet them. Shit. Couldn’t he get anything right? He cursed his stupidity, and started to turn away, hiding his confusion.

“Hutch.” Starsky’s low voice, gentle and a little out of breath, stopped him. “It’s okay. I’m glad you missed me. S’nice to feel needed.”

Hutch put the empty water glass down, saw that his hand wasn’t as steady this time. He realized just how tired he was. Couldn’t remember how long ago he’d last slept. Watch it, Hutchinson, he warned himself. Nothing’s changed, remember that, Don’t blow the whole show now.

He turned back, mustering a smile from somewhere. “Don’t let it go to your head. I just didn’t want to have to break in a new partner.”

“Yeah, right. I know. Cause then you might have to drive.”

“Right. Or win at ping pong,”

Starsky grinned, remembering. “That’s right, you still owe me a steak dinner, buddy boy. Hey—” he suddenly broke off, looking around the room. “What happened to dinner?”

Hutch shook his head. “Confiscated.”

“Huggy’s nurse from hell?”

“Mmhmm.”

Starsky gave his best heartbroken puppy-dog look. “Robbed.”

In truth, he didn’t know if he would have been able to keep solid food down at all just then—but it felt so good to be playing the old games with Hutch that he felt compelled to play his part. “You think we could get her for grand larceny?”

“Well, she’d have me for breaking and entering, not to mention setting off a fire alarm illegally.”

“Yeah, that could get sticky.”

“To say the least.”

They were just talking nonsense, being silly, but it felt wonderful to Hutch. Blue eyes met bluer for a long moment. Aw, Starsk, he thought, his smile fading. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I had to go and mess up such a good thing.

I never meant to fall for you so hard.

“Hutch?” Starsky asked softly. “What is it?”

Hutch shook himself. Watch it. “Nothing, buddy, just glad to have you back.”

Starsky’s lopsided smile kindled a kernel of warmth behind Hutch’s breastbone. “You and me both.” They held each other’s eyes a moment longer; then Starsky opened his hand, palm up, on the bedspread. “C’mere.”

Hutch looked at the proffered hand for a moment, momentarily caught off guard.

“I’m not gonna bite.”

Hutch realized his expression was betraying his dismay. Not knowing what else to do, he stepped forward and sat on the edge of the bed. Starsky’s hand was still there on the coverlet, open to him, waiting. At last, Hutch took it.

The hand was cool, and felt small in Hutch’s bigger one, but he could feel the strong, reassuring heartbeat under Starsky’s skin. Hutch swallowed; finally, he looked up. “Starsk?” His voice sounded funny, and he found he was having difficulty breathing properly,

“S’okay, Hutch, Just got somethin’ I gotta say.”

For a second, Hutch’s own heart skipped a beat; then it began a low, heavy pounding at the base of his throat. He was afraid of what might come out of his mouth, so he kept quiet. Waited.

“I’m sorry, babe.”

Hutch blinked, nonplused. “What have you got to be sorry for?”

Starsky sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t pay attention when you told me to get down, out there by the car. An’ I’m sorry I left you to face Gunther by yourself. No, don’t interrupt me—this is important.” Hutch closed his mouth over the protest he would have made. Starsky’s hand tightened on his, eyes darting away and then back again, showing him painful honesty through a veil of dark lashes, “Most of all, m’sorry for the last few months... for lettin’ stupid stuff come between us.”

Hutch’s mouth went dry. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The denial was wooden, automatic. Despite his promise, he didn’t think he could talk about this, not now.

Starsky frowned. Was Hutch deliberately being dense? Couldn’t he see how important this was? They’d been at odds for months, snapping at each other for no reason, getting in trouble on cases because they weren’t working together. They’d let a woman neither of them loved come between them. How could Hutch pretend he didn’t know something was wrong between them—fundamentally wrong?

“You do know,” he insisted.

Hutch looked at him, eyes shadowed, hiding something Starsky couldn’t decipher. “Do I?”

That look was one Starsky had gotten to know well in the last year or so. He didn’t intend to let it push him away, not this time.

But Hutch’s gaze faltered, and suddenly Starsky saw, as if it were revealed to him by a magician’s trick, how much his partner had aged just in the last few days. He seemed to be struggling against some inner pressure: exhaustion, or something else.

Starsky couldn’t help it; he couldn’t maintain the stern expression. “Look, I know you hate it when I take risks I don’t hafta. You’re right—it was stupid. My own fault I got shot. I shoulda listened to you—”

Abruptly, Hutch pulled away and stood up. He turned his back without a word, took two steps away from the bed and stopped.

Starsky realized his mouth was hanging open, closed it. Was Hutch that angry with him, that he couldn’t even talk about it? “C’mon, I’m tryin’ to apologize, f’pete’s sake.”

“Stop it.” Hutch’s voice came grating, low. “Just stop it. Dammit, Starsk—” He sounded like he was clenching his jaw against angry words that wanted to come out.

But was it anger? Or something else? Starsky realized Hutch was trembling, faint shudders running through his tall frame. Starsky pushed himself up on his elbows, ignoring his body’s protests, trying to see his partner’s face.

Back turned, Hutch clenched his fists. Tucked them under his arms, so Starsky wouldn’t see. He couldn’t seem to stop trembling,

“Babe, talk to me.”

The trembling got worse. “I can’t.” He was starting to lose it. “I can’t.” Because if he started with the truth, he didn’t trust himself to stop. He’d been holding secrets inside too long.

“Sure you can.” That gentle voice, coaxing him. “Whatever I did, I’ll make it up to ya—”

Hutch groaned, undone. Unfair... so unfair, that Starsky should be asking his forgiveness. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for. Nothing. We both know it was me. It was me the whole time. I was the one.” _I was the one, and I almost let you die without telling you—_

Then Starsky was saying his name, saying it with an urgency Hutch didn’t understand, until he realized that he was breathing raggedly—that in a second he was going to be crying. He turned blindly for the door, his only thought to get out of the room, get away and try to get control of himself before he made things worse.

Starsky’s voice stopped him three steps from escape. “You runnin’ away from me, Hutch?”

Hutch closed his eyes. _Yeah. Yeah, Starsk, I’m running away from you—just like I have been for more than a year. What of it?_

But he couldn’t get the words past the tears closing his throat.

“It’s gettin’ to be a habit—you runnin’ away from me. You know that?” Starsky sounded sad, tired beyond bearing. Hutch tried to walk away from that, tried hard to make his feet carry him out the door to the safety of the hallway. But Starsky’s voice made it impossible to leave. “C’mon, it’s just me here. What’re you afraid of?”

Hutch made a soft, involuntary sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. He’d tried to cry before, when Starsky was sleeping, hadn’t really been able to. Now he couldn’t stem the impending storm. The first tears welled, and he tilted his head back, trying to keep them from spilling. His arms were still crossed, hands still tucked under them, as if he could hold himself together that way, prevent the disaster that was about to happen, “What am I afraid of? Nothing, Everything.” His breath caught. “Myself.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Better that way.” The tears started to slide down Hutch’s face, and he blinked them away.

“Better? Me in the dark an’ you miserable an’ both of us alone—how can that be better?”

Hutch choked up harder, not even knowing what he was crying for. Everything, he guessed. Simple exhaustion, relief, thankfulness, love—and all the things he couldn’t say. “It just is.” His throat was clogged, tight, making the words almost unintelligible.

Starsky, watching him struggle with his tears, felt his own throat close. He never could stand to see his friend in pain. “Hutch. Please.” He was about to cry himself, and he didn’t even know what was wrong. He had to swallow, ‘Tell me what the hell’s goin’ on.”

And Hutch turned as if dragged, as if the effort of turning was only one shade less than the effort it would have cost him to keep still. He was still holding tightly to himself, still trying obviously to hold it together. But his face—

He met Starsky’s gaze as if pleading for mercy, his eyes huge, the tears turning them a shocking shade of crystalline blue. Starsky felt his own tears come then, as hard as he tried to stop them. “Aw, babe, what’s hurtin’ you? Can’t you tell me?” Starsky wanted so badly to put his arms around his partner, hold him, make that took go away. There’d been a wall between them for months now, and he didn’t know if Hutch would let it down far enough to let him reach out. More to the point, he was flat on his back, with no way of getting across the six or so feet of open space between them, and right now that seemed like the greatest unfairness in the world.

He tried to think of words that would make it okay between them, make it be like it was, before the anger and the stiffness and the silences. Before Hutch had made running out on him a habit. But words were Hutch’s department—Starsky didn’t know the right ones. What was that darkness in the look Hutch was giving him? Was it anger, betrayal, fear, need? It looked like all of that, and more than that, too many shadings for him to interpret. How could he know what was the right thing to say?

And then he saw—Hutch’s hands, which had been clenched tightly into fists against his body, were easing, trembling, opening to him. Though Hutch kept them close at his sides, the big hands were instinctively asking for the one thing Starsky knew how to give.

Starsky’s throat hurt something terrible, and he couldn’t even say Hutch’s name. He didn’t have to. He just opened his arms, held them open, offering. And Hutch, after a long moment, gave a broken sob and took a step toward him.

One step and then another, and then Starsky had his arms full of partner—and if his damaged body protested the sudden weight, he didn’t care. He held as tight as he could and murmured nonsense words against the blond silk of the other man’s hair. “It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

Hutch sobbed once. And again, as if it hurt him. Then his arms found their way around Starsky, held on as if he could keep them close, together, safe forever. His tears flooded hot against Starsky’s neck.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Shhh.”

“It was me. It was me the whole time.”

Starsky didn’t really understand that, but there would be time for understanding later. “Shh. Doesn’t matter.”

“I thought I’d lost you.”

Hutch became incoherent then for a long moment, and Starsky rocked him a little, stroking his hair. “‘M’right here, babe.”

Hutch pulled back a little at that; Starsky could feel him shaking, “Why?”

Starsky blinked fast, trying to blink the tears away. “Don’t be an idiot”

“Why?” A demand. “Why do you still give a shit about me, when I’ve been so stupid?”

Starsky shook his head, helpless. Hutch’s obvious anguish was killing him. “Whaddya talkin’ about?”

Hutch swallowed hard, pulled himself together. He started to pull away, wiping at his face impatiently. He had to struggle with the words for a moment before he could get them out. “You almost died, Starsk, and I never told you—” He broke off. “I never told you anything.”

A deep, infinite tenderness welled up in Starsky’s night-dark eyes, stopping the breath in Hutch’s chest “Aw, buddy, I knew, I always knew. You didn’t hafta say it.”

Starsky’s lashes glistened, spiky with tears he wouldn’t have shown to anyone else. But with him, Hutch thought, Starsky didn’t hide his heart. Hutch wanted—a wanting so fierce he almost couldn’t contain it—to brush the tears away, kiss them away, press his lips to the dark curls and stroke them as Starsky had stroked his hair.

Hutch shook his head, beyond words. His heart felt like it was going to burst, or break. Too much, that Starsky should know him so well—and understand him so little. Despair and frustration overwhelmed him. “You don’t get it.”

Starsky just kept looking at him like that, like Hutch was the best present anyone had ever given him. “Don’t get what?”

Hutch wanted to pull away, to get angry, to tell him not to go turning over stones when he didn’t know what he was going to find. But that look just made him feel helpless, made him hurt more than he knew how to deal with. He averted his eyes, defeated. “Starsky, you just don’t understand.”

Starsky’s voice rose. “Then explain it to me, Hutchinson.”

That tone made Hutch’s head come up. As mercurial as the weather, Starsky was dangerous now, a challenge in those impossibly blue eyes that made Hutch’s stomach tighten. There was a faint spot of color in the other man’s cheeks. And to his chagrin, Hutch felt the heat rise in his body in response to that look. Instinct—one he couldn’t suppress. How many times had he fled some heated conversation with his partner for just this reason? How many times had he confronted that banked fire in eyes that could drown a man and felt himself responding against his will—or any effort at control?

“Starsky,” he warned.

“Explain it to me. Make me understand. I’m not a complete moron, y’know.”

“I know that!”

“Well, then what’s the problem?”

Hutch tried desperately to think of something, but his brain was terrifyingly blank. All he could think of was John Blaine... all he could hear was Starsky’s voice saying, _We were really close. How could he’ve been gay without my knowing it?_

“You don’t want to know, Starsky.” He pleaded silently with the man to leave it alone, but instead Starsky reached out, put a hand on the back of Hutch’s neck. His touch there was gentle, shockingly intimate. Hutch felt himself dissolving.

Starsky’s voice came, soft, urging him to just let go, just let it out, “Whatever it is, I can handle it. We can handle it together if you’ll just talk t’me and stop bein’ such a stubborn pain in the ass.”

Desperate, Hutch’s voice rose, ‘Trust me, you don’t want to know! Now drop it, will you?” He wanted to shake off that caress, couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. Too much like water to a man in the desert.

“Uh-uh, buddy. Not this time. This time, you gotta trust me.” And Starsky smiled then, breaking down whatever defenses Hutch might have had left. “So... what is it you need to tell me?”

If only he hadn’t smiled. If only his hand hadn’t been so warm on the back of Hutch’s neck. If his voice had been a fraction less gentle or his eyes a shade less blue. But Hutch doubted anything short of the building burning to the ground could have stopped him from kissing Starsky then.

He was aware of each distinct fraction of a second as it the irresistible compulsion drew him in, pulled his head down, the distance closing between them. He was aware of every tiny, separate sensation. The warmth of Starsky’s body under his hands, where he had never quite broken their earlier embrace. The sound of their weight shifting against the hospital bed. The feel of Starsky, close, overwhelming, making him dizzy. The soft, disbelieving intake of breath—his own, or Starsky’s, he couldn’t tell, didn’t care.

Because then their lips touched, and he couldn’t think any more.

The first kiss was a whisper. It was the answer to Starsky’s question, the only answer Hutch could give.

Their lips touched, then parted on a held breath as the shock of it reverberated in Hutch’s nerves, setting him ablaze. He could bear the separation only a moment before he was kissing Starsky for real, pressing close, his mouth worshipping, drinking at the wellspring of his deepest, most secret love. And again there was a parting—sweet, shared breath, and the drowning feeling which turned swiftly to melting, sinking in his gut. Gravity dragged him down, and the third kiss —

But the third kiss never happened.

“Mmph, What the hell—?”

Aching, longing emptiness, and realization, and the feeling of falling. Falling down and down into a well of blue, into wide, startled eyes that slammed Hutch back to reality.

For a long moment they looked at each other from a distance of inches. It was a close contest whose eyes could go wider, whose heart could pound harder, whose pulse could send the greater thrill of fear along nerves jolted awake by that impossible kiss.

Hutch was the first to find words, though they were almost soundless, small with the impact of what he’d done. “Oh, God.”

Starsky’s face was an essay in shock. His voice, when it came, was high and breathless. “You ain’t kiddin’.” He was looking at Hutch like he’d never seen him before, like he’d suddenly found an alien from another planet leaning over him.

What was that look? Hutch was drowning in the rush of heat shuddering through him, couldn’t read it. Then the heat turned cold. He sank back, away from those wide eyes—would have leapt up and fled, except he didn’t think his legs would hold him. Starsky was frowning, struggling to understand. In a second his shock would wear off. Betrayal and disgust would replace the confusion, and what would Hutch do then? His heart had seized up.

“Oh, God, S-starsk—”

Starsky shook his head, dark brows knit with the effort to understand. “Shut up. Shut up.” He said it distractedly, as if he were trying desperately to think and couldn’t do it with Hutch talking to him. “That was... what that was...” He muttered it to himself, as if trying to solve a tricky math problem. Then he looked up, seizing Hutch with an accusing, demanding gaze. “What was that?”

“Starsk, I’m s-sorry—” Hutch started to get up, to run from what was coming, but Starsky moved, seized onto Hutch’s wrists.

“No! You stay right there an’ explain this to me. Now.” It was a tone of voice Hutch had heard Starsky use before once or twice, but never with him. Now it sounded scared. The place where Starsky’s mouth had touched his burned like a brand.

Hutch couldn’t look at him any more. Couldn’t face him. He looked down at the place where Starsky’s hands were locked onto his arms. Those hands were small, strong—white to the knuckles. “You know,”‘ Hutch whispered at last.

Starsky caught his breath. “Do I?”

Innocence had always been Starsky’s greatest charm, part of his magic, a large part of what had drawn Hutch to him in the first place. Deadly combination, the edge of danger tempered by that vast, childlike innocence. Hutch loved him for it—had loved him for that almost before he’d loved him for all the other reasons there were to love Starsky—but right then, it was too much.

Hutch lifted his head, meeting Starsky’s gaze with an anger born of too many months of keeping this inside. An anger he hadn’t seen coming, and couldn’t control. “Don’t you?” He knew he’d snapped then. “You said it yourself—you’re not stupid. Don’t you know, Starsky? Can’t you see?” He was practically snarling in his partner’s face now, and Starsky recoiled as if Hutch were a mad dog, turned vicious. “You telling me you can spend twelve hours a day with me, sometimes eighteen hours a day, every day—and not know? How can you not see how it is?” He broke off, realizing he’d gone too far.

“How is it?” Starsky asked in a small voice, when he could manage words at all.

It was Hutch’s turn to catch his breath, “What?”

Starsky, pale and breathing hard, made Hutch meet his eyes. “I said, how is it?” His jaw set, the stubborn look Hutch knew too well. “I mean, you keep tellin’ me I don’t understand, now you say I should be a mind-reader. Why don’t you make up your mind? An’ how the hell am I s’posed to know what you’re thinkin’ when you’ve done everything you can to shut me out for months?”

Hutch found himself gaping like a fish snagged by a hook and thrown, gasping, to land. Starsky let him go, sat back, spreading his hands. “All right, you wanna play twenty questions? You wanna play like you’re a perp an’ I’m questionin’ you? We can play that if you want.”

Hutch found his voice. “It’s not a game, Starsky.”

“Isn’t it? What d’ya call that stunt then?” He made a funny little gesture, and Hutch realized he was talking about the kiss, couldn’t quite bring himself to say it.

“I never meant—” he started. Then he met Starsky’s gaze and felt himself flush. What was that look Starsky was giving him? He still had no idea what was going on in Starsky’s head.

“You never meant,” Starsky repeated slowly. “What did you mean then, partner? You just so glad to see me you lost your head an’ thought I was Marilyn Monroe for a second?”

For an instant, Hutch almost laughed. He realized this whole situation was making him a little hysterical. Thankfully, he managed to clamp down on the mad laughter before it escaped him. “No,” he managed.

Starsky regarded him intently, the frown deepening. “Well, then maybe it was just an impulse thing? Lack of sleep?” Hutch was shaking his head no. “You got hit by a truck on the way over here, an’ hit your head an’ now you have amnesia?” The impulse to laugh was stronger now. Hutch stifled it and shook his head again. “You’re just completely insane and you have no idea who I am, who you are, or who the President of the United States is?”

“Carter.”

Starsky blinked. “What?”

“Jimmy Carter is the President of the United States.” Hutch knew he had gone out of his mind. It was a bit of a relief, really. Maybe this was all a delusion.

_“Hutch.”_

Starsky looked lost then, as if Hutch’s proven derangement was more than he could deal with—and then it wasn’t funny any more, and sanity crashed over Hutch like a cold wave. “Starsk, I’m sorry.” He suddenly wanted to cry again. The vision of what his life would be like without Starsky’s friendship stretched out before him, empty and unbearable. His throat hurt so much he almost couldn’t get the words out. “I’m so sorry.”

Starsky drew a shaky breath and ran a hand through his hair, all the time giving Hutch that unreadable look. “Are you?” he said at last. “Sorry you... did that, I mean?”

Hutch stared at him. And suddenly the heat spread through him again, starting in his belly and sinking to his knees, rising to his face. He couldn’t speak.

He shook his head.

They stared at each other, until Hutch realized he was shaking again, this time with an awareness he didn’t dare name, a hope he couldn’t afford. Starsky was drawing one deep breath after another like a man trying not to hyperventilate, all the time looking at him as if with new eyes, Then his mobile face altered yet again, softening with a look that could have melted the coldest of stone hearts.

“So, then, tell me. If you’re not hallucinating, an’ you’re not crazy or delusional, an’ you’re not sorry—how is it, Hutch?”

Impossible to stop the mad pounding of his heart. Impossible to keep himself from responding to Starsky when he looked like that, so fragile and vulnerable, eyes beseeching, hair standing up in a riot of dark curls. Hutch reached out, suddenly needing to touch him, as if holding on to Starsky would help anchor him against the words he couldn’t keep inside. He only meant to put a hand on the other man’s arm—but Starsky reached back, took his hand.

Hutch felt the tears spill again, couldn’t hold the words back any more. “I love you, Starsk.” And with the words, a dam broke in him, and all the things he’d wanted to say for so long came welling up. “I love you—” Starsky was squeezing his hand tight. Hutch shook his head. “No, wait, listen before you say anything. This is how it is for me. I’m telling you. This is how it is.” He drew a breath, the relief of letting it out making him light-headed. “I think about you all the time. I watch you when you’re not looking. I want to protect you, take care of you, cook dinner for you so you’ll eat something decent for a change. I’m jealous when you’re with anyone else but me. I think about you while I—” He broke off, flushing scarlet, and met Starsky’s stunned gaze for a fraction of a second before he had to look away. He swallowed, hard. His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “I want to make love to you.”

The silence that followed that statement went on a long time. Hutch was afraid to look up, afraid to see what reaction would be in Starsky’s face. But just to have said it, after so many months of running—a calm peace began to wash over him, a kind of numb acceptance. Whatever happened, at least there would be no more pretending.

Starsky didn’t let go of his hand, and after a time, Hutch became aware that it was hard to say which of them was holding on tighter.

Finally Starsky’s voice came, low and rough around the edges.

“How long?”

Hutch closed his eyes. Drew a breath. “More than a year.”

Another silence, in which Hutch could hear the other man swallowing. Starsky cleared his throat, finally; Hutch still couldn’t bring himself to look at him. “That’s a long time to keep a secret like this, Hutchinson.”

Hutch felt a sinking sensation at the use of his full name, but now that he’d started, he might as well tell it all. “I know. I don’t know when it started, or how—I just know that one day we were in the car, and I looked over at you and realized...” He broke off, seeing the memory of Starsky’s face when he had told him about Blaine, when Starsky had finally believed him. That wounded, betrayed look, touched with distaste—how would he bear it if Starsky looked at him like that, now? His partner had made it plain enough how he felt about homosexuality. _A man preferring a man is not as casual as somebody having a bad cold._

“Please, Starsk,” he heard himself pleading, “don’t turn your back on me? It won’t happen again, I swear it, Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do. If you want me to get another partner, I will.” He knew Starsky could see how much that hurt him to say. “If you want me to quit the force. Anything.”

“You’d actually do that?” Starsky’s eyes were intent on his.

Hutch was caught off guard. He had to swallow. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

The fire was back in Starsky’s eyes, the stubborn set back to his jaw. A constriction in Hutch’s chest made it hard to breathe. He tried to steel himself for the rejection he feared most.

To his surprise, it was Starsky who looked away then, casting his eyes downward, hiding behind the dark sweep of his lashes. Hutch followed the direction of his gaze—to where their hands were clasped tightly together, their fingers interlaced. And then Starsky leaned forward as much as his bandages would allow, looked up, pinning Hutch with his gaze.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

Hutch’s heart had been pounding dully for some minutes. At Starsky’s words, his pulse sped up, fluttering unevenly. He searched the eyes that had become more familiar than his own reflection. “The truth?”

“Yeah, the truth. Spell it out for me.” Starsky’s face was set in lines of pure determination, but Hutch could feel the tremor that ran through him when he said it.

Hutch blew out the breath he’d been holding. “You really want to know?” _You know what you’re asking?_ he asked with his eyes.

Starsky waited.

“I want everything,” Hutch finally said in a rush, “I want everything with you that two people can have together. I want to kiss you again, so bad I can taste it.” He felt the flush burn in his cheeks, but hurried on, “I want to sleep with you—I mean, just sleep, you know. All night, with our heads on the same pillow. I want to undress you and take you in my mouth. I want to do it in your car with the windows down. I want to get old with you, and for us never to have things come between us again. To never have to keep things from you again. I want to hear what you sound like when you come.” He ran down, voice hoarse, his face and neck flaming. He couldn’t take his eyes from the place where Starsky was still letting Hutch hold his hand.

“Jesus,” Starsky whispered at last.

Hutch made a sound like a laugh, out of breath. “Yeah.” Still couldn’t meet his eyes, look at his face. “Yeah.” Finally, he had to look up. Too late to turn back. “Starsk, I want that with you. Nobody else. You understand what I’m saying?” Starsky was staring at him, eyes wide, lips parted. Hutch swallowed convulsively. “But if you want me to get lost for a while, I will. Whatever you want. Just—” His voice broke. “Please don’t take your friendship away from me. I couldn’t stand it.”

For what felt like a small forever, Starsky just stared at him with that deer-in-headlights look. And then, slowly, he disentangled his fingers from Hutch’s and pulled his hand free.

Hutch watched him pull away. He could hear himself breathing, could hear the labored sound as his lungs tried to find enough oxygen in the room. Only this time there would be no tears, just this awful feeling of falling, until he fell into darkness, and loneliness swallowed him up, He was shaking badly, he could feel it—but it didn’t seem to matter any more. He’d already given away everything, had given up the secret truth of his heart. What did it matter if he came apart now?

Starsky sat still, head bowed, for a minute, two. His hands were in his lap, palms up, and he stared at them as if they were foreign objects he’d never seen before. He stared at them and Hutch stared at him, feeling everything good inside himself drying up, beginning to turn to ashes. _Starsky. Oh babe, me and thee. Me and thee._

And then Starsky turned one hand over, and the other, tilted his head as if in curiosity, studying them even more intently. To Hutch, it seemed as though Starsky had become so engrossed in looking at his hands, he might have forgotten Hutch existed. Finally, deliberately, Starsky closed his hands loosely into fists, brought them together in his lap, eyes still lowered, a curious gesture that reminded Hutch of praying. Starsky drew a breath—perhaps his first in some moments.

At last he said, “Can we start with the first one?”

Hutch thought Starsky might have been speaking another language, for all he understood. And yet his heart skipped, painfully, and began beating again, too fast. “What?” he heard himself say.

Starsky’s Adam’s apple moved up and down once. He still didn’t look up. “You said...” His voice cracked a little. “‘I want to kiss you again.’ Could we start with that?”

For a second, the darkness closed in on Hutch, and he couldn’t breathe. His heart felt like it would burn itself out. Was he saying...?

“Starsky?”

Starsky’s eyes lifted, impatient, afraid, and full of a light so beautiful it had to be a dream. “C’mon, I think that’s a pretty straightforward request. How specific do I gotta get?”

For the first time in longer than he could remember, Hutch drew a breath and tasted wonder. “You mean it?” he heard himself ask in a small voice.

Starsky shrugged; Hutch could see him trembling. “Yeah, well, the first time you did it was okay, so I thought...”

That’s all he got out before Hutch was moving, closing the space between them. Starsky’s eyes went wide, his breath catching. Hutch slid one arm gently beneath him, pulling him close. For a moment Hutch held him like that, just hugging him as he had a thousand times before, tucking his head into Starsky’s shoulder. “Ah, Starsk.” He sobbed once, and Starsky instinctively brought his hand up, stroked his hair.

Hutch pulled back then, looked hard into his face. There was dawning amazement in his expression. “You really do mean it.”

Starsky’s heart was running double time—he didn’t know if it was fear. He didn’t know what he was feeling, didn’t know what he would feel tomorrow, or even five minutes from now. He didn’t know what it meant, that his best friend wanted him, loved him like that, didn’t know if he even cared at that moment. Right then, he didn’t know anything except that he was sure he didn’t want to make up his mind about anything until Hutch kissed him again.

“Yeah, I mean it. An’ if I was you, I wouldn’t give me too much longer to think it over, if you know what I mean.”

Hutch laughed breathlessly, his eyes lighting like the morning sky, “Is that another way of saying ‘shut up and kiss me?’”

Starsky smiled crookedly. “Maybe. “ He tried for the old teasing tone, his nervousness betraying itself in his unsteady voice, “I been waitin’ a long time to prove t’you what a good—”

But Hutch touched his lips reverently with one fingertip, hushing him. The solemn awe in his face said that he’d been waiting a long time, too. Starsky caught his breath at the intensity in Hutch’s eyes; he flushed with sudden heat. This was another man, about to kiss him—and he wanted it! More, it was Hutch, and there would be no going back for either of them.

It was everything like the first time, and nothing. Starsky could feel Hutch’s hand supporting him, taking his weight, lifting him up. That strength was safe, comforting. It made him forget to be afraid. In the moment before their lips met, he remembered belatedly to breathe and got a lungful of his partner’s scent, woodsy and faint and wonderful. At last Hutch’s lips touched his, and he had to close his eyes.

It was gentle, not hesitant like the first one but gentle, as if Hutch wanted to give him a moment to adjust, to feel the warm reality of another man’s mouth on his, to come to terms with it. Hutch slid his lips back and forth once, letting Starsky taste him, letting him feel the soft brush of his mustache. Breathing him in, too.

And then Starsky moved against him, returning the pressure on his mouth a little, and everything changed.

Hutch felt the instant it happened—knew Starsky did, too. Felt it? God, he couldn’t feel anything else. A lightning flash; heat lightning, intense and visceral, dragged their mouths together, circling from the center of his being to Starsky’s and back again. He moaned and sank down, no stopping it, pushing Starsky back against the pillows and following. He shuddered with the effort to keep it from going too far. First kiss, echoed vaguely in his Starsky-fogged brain. First kiss as lovers, don’t spoil it, don’t—

Then Starsky’s tongue touched his lips, slipped into his mouth, touched something at his core and dragged a sound from his throat he couldn’t suppress.

For a moment he gave into it, knowing even as he did that it was crazy, suicide, that he would burn up from the heat of it. They kissed as if they could live on it, slow, teasing kisses that enflamed and enflamed. Then deeper, drinking each other in until they were both groaning with each kiss, sucking air through their nostrils, unable to draw apart even to breathe.

At last Hutch couldn’t bear it any more. He broke away, groaning, “Starsk...” once, before the pull drew him back down. When he pulled away again, desperate for air, Starsky s head had tilted back on the pillow. His face was flushed, transcendent, eyes tightly shut, the dark lashes curled against his cheeks. His mouth hung open, panting, his expression one of passion so intense it was almost painful, twisting his lips into a grimace. Hutch wanted to cry, he was so beautiful. Couldn’t spare breath for it.

Then he heard Starsky’s shallow, labored breathing and realized—he was in pain. The grimace wasn’t only passion, but real physical distress.

It was the only thing that could have kept him from kissing Starsky again. “Starsk.” He stroked the side of Starsky’s face, fighting for control. He felt himself vibrating with need, with a hot, urgent hardness pressed between himself and Starsky’s compact body beneath him. Carefully, he eased his weight off the bed, not quite knowing how he’d come to be in that position in the first place.

Starsky drew a shaky breath, not opening his eyes. “Don’t stop. Hutch—don’t stop.”

The words thrilled through Hutch’s body, and he trembled with the effort to keep himself from answering that plea. Not even a good kisser—had he said that? It was possibly the greatest joke the world had ever known, David Starsky kissed like a man divinely inspired, as though he were made for it Hutch tried not to think about it. “Starsk—you’re hurt.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do.”

Starsky opened his eyes, a heavy-lidded gaze that turned Hutch’s insides to jelly. “You don’t count.”

Hutch wanted to laugh, but his body’s desperation and his worry about Starsky damped the reaction down to a tense smile. “Since when?”

“Since I said so.”

Hutch eased his arm free, and Starsky winced. He didn’t make a sound, but Hutch saw him go a sudden shade paler.

He stroked along Starsky’s hairline with his fingertips, soothing him. “Don’t want to have to call the nurse just now. And besides—” There was a catch in his throat. “We need to talk.”

There came a pause, and Hutch worried alternately about Starsky’s stitches and about what was going on in the man’s head. “I’m a lover, not a talker,” Starsky muttered at last. Then his eyelids fluttered up again, and this time his eyes were pleading. “It’s better if I don’t hafta think.”

Starsky’s voice drifted off. A look of concentration came over him that made the pounding of Hutch’s heart start up again, not that it had ever really gone away.

He held still as Starsky reached out and touched his mouth. “Hey, blintz, you know something? You are really beautiful.” Hutch swallowed, closed his eyes, the feel of Starsky’s fingertips tracing him, learning him, almost more than he could take sitting still, “I mean it. Don’t know why I never noticed it before.”

When he could, Hutch opened his eyes and held Starsky’s gaze with his own. He lifted his hand to cover Starsky’s, where it rested against his cheek. The need to say aloud how he felt was a pressure in his throat, a cinder in the center of him, burning to get out. But he’d said it twice already—didn’t want to scare him too badly. _I love you,_ he said with his heart, unable to keep it entirely to himself. _I love you._

Starsky was wearing his figuring-something-out look. “I mean, I always knew you were beautiful, but I never really saw it before. Well, okay, I saw but I never really looked—” he gave Hutch a perplexed look. “Am I makin’ any sense?”

Hutch shook his head, completely unable to keep himself from grinning like a loon. “No. But go on.”

Starsky stared at him. “Hutchinson, if I didn’t know you better I’d think you was fishin’ for compliments.”

To Hutch, it was such a relief that he could kiss Starsky with all the passion in his soul and still share this give-and-take with him, that things could be the same between them. He had to avert his gaze for a moment to regain control of himself. He wanted nothing more than to curl up in the bed with Starsky, just hold him for a very long time. Again it struck him that Starsky had almost died, and again the realization carried power enough to knock him to the ground,

“Hey.” Starsky’s voice. Starsky’s hand on his thigh, as casually intimate about touching him as ever. Hutch met the other man’s eyes. Starsky was smiling at him, half-flirting, half-shy, the combination devastating. “Whaddya say we move on to step two?”

Hutch swallowed. Step two? Electric shivers ran delicately over his skin, centering at the place where Starsky’s hand rested on his thigh, warming him through the worn denim. What was step two? His brain shorted out, drawing a blank. He became aware, suddenly and painfully, that his intense arousal hadn’t abated much; he tried to block that out, struggling for rational thought. “No, you’re hurt. We can’t.”

“Hutch.”

“We haven’t even... Starsky, we need to talk about this. I need to know—”

“ _Hutch_.” Starsky said his name, louder this time.

“What?” It came out sounding a little desperate.

“Take it easy. That’s all I want—to talk. And I want you to get rid of that look.”

“Look?” Hutch frowned. “What look?” He flushed, feeling the heat in his face again, knowing Starsky read him like a book. “And what the hell is step two?”

“That look like you just saw a ghost that happens to bear a strong resemblance to yours truly.” Starsky’s expression gentled, his voice lowering. “And step two, y’know. Comes after the kissing step.”

Hutch shook his head helplessly.

It was Starsky’s turn to blush. “‘I want to sleep with you—I mean, just sleep. All night, with our heads on the same pillow.’” He gave Hutch a sheepish, sidelong look. “Step two.”

Hutch stared at him for a long moment before he realized his mouth was open in what had to be a fairly stupid expression. He closed it. Finally he smiled, bemused. “I can see I’m going to have to watch what I say with you.” He had to clear his throat. “Didn’t know you were paying such close attention.”

Starsky’s eyes lowered. “Yeah, well, it’s not every day you hear somethin’ like that.” Then his eyes were on Hutch’s again, dark and serious with the revelation, the banked flame of his response to the words Hutch had spoken. “I’d hafta be a stone not to feel somethin’ pretty serious for the person who said those things.”

“You sure?” Hutch asked hoarsely after a moment. He couldn’t say more than that; the wanting was too much.

“Am I ever.” Starsky lifted back the covers. When Hutch didn’t move, he looked up, asking with his eyes.

It would have taken a man with a lot more willpower than Ken Hutchinson possessed right then to deny that look. It also would have taken an idiot, Hutch thought. He hurried to get his shoes off, dropping them unceremoniously on the floor.

“Twice in one night,” he muttered, glancing toward the door, remembering the nurse that had insisted on barging in repeatedly, earlier in the evening. “I must be out of my mind.”

“Crazy like a fox,” Starsky murmured, and Hutch turned to find the man watching him, a speculative set to his face that Hutch had never thought to see coming from his partner. It made his body hum, right down to his toes. It stopped him for a moment where he stood beside the bed—and then it hit him, what Starsky was seeing.

He blushed to the roots of his hair.

“Ah, look—”

Starsky’s eyes rose from where they had rested on the lower portion of his anatomy, giving him that teasing, enflaming look that had almost driven him out of his head earlier. “Nothin’ to be ashamed of.”

His obvious amusement threatened to push Hutch over the edge of his shaky control. Hutch opened his mouth to put him in his place—and then Starsky lifted the bedclothes a little higher, and Hutch saw what the sheets had concealed, what the blue pajama bottoms didn’t.

Hutch’s eyes went wide. “Starsk,” he breathed.

“Last time I checked.” After a moment, his eyebrows rose. “You gonna get over here or not?”

Hutch blinked. “Yeah, I... um.”

“What’s the matter, cat got your—”

Starsky didn’t manage to get the rest of his sentence out before Hutch climbed into the bed with him, still in his jeans and socks and shirt and that same old football jacket. Starsky didn’t care. Hutch was kissing him almost before he’d managed to get under the covers, beside him this time instead of on top, taking Starsky’s breath again, overwhelming him. The same high voltage energy arced between them at the first touch, the same heat. Only this time he could feel more—the hard, hot pressure of Hutch’s body all along his own, the welcome, overpowering warmth of those big hands, one on his waist, holding him, the other in his hair. He turned his head, all he could do, trying to get more of Hutch. He longed to turn on his side, to grab hold of Hutch’s hips and press their bodies together, heat to heat—the bandages and the dull, warning pain in his back prevented it. Somewhere a small voice asked what the hell he was doing, but the very question seemed incongruous, foolish. He loved Hutch. It felt so good to kiss him tike this, to feel those hands on him, How could there be anything wrong with it?

At last Hutch’s mouth broke away from his. Starsky made a faint sound of protest, tried to reach up to pull Hutch’s head back down. But Hutch had moved away from him a little and lowered his forehead to Starsky’s shoulder. His labored breath came hot on Starsky’s neck. He still had one hand pressed tight to Starsky’s hip as if to steady himself.

Hutch managed to get coherent words to form. “Talk. You said talk. And sleep.” It sounded like an accusation.

“Yeah.” Starsky himself was breathing heavily, aware of the various protests of his partially-healed body, but unrepentant. “Well, how else was I s’posed to get you in here with me? You looked like you was about to go off on a real guilt trip there. I had t’head ya off at the pass.”

A groan. Hutch closed his eyes, defeated. “Starsky.”

“Hey. Cut it out, willya? Look at me for a second.”

Hutch complied. Starsky’s beautiful eyes looked down at him, the lush mouth just within reach. God, the man would be his undoing, Starsky smiled, his expression amused and tender and serious all at the same time. “I’m a grown-up, y’know. I know what I’m doin’.”

Hutch turned on his back beside him and closed his eyes. He didn’t think he could go on looking at Starsky like that and still keep things from getting out of hand. He blew a breath out sharply, “How can you?”

“What d’ya mean?”

“How can you know, Starsk? Have you ever been with another man before?”

“No. ‘Course not.” The voice sounded small. A pause. Then, “Have you?”

Hutch felt a cold finger touch his heart. He had to draw a careful breath before he could answer. “That doesn’t matter. The point is—”

“Wait a minute. Have you?” Starsky held his breath for a moment, watching the stillness in his partner’s face. Hutch didn’t open his eyes.

Finally, he said, “Yes.”

Starsky felt like he’d been punched. The euphoria ran out of him in a flood, taking desire with it and leaving him cold. The force of his reaction surprised him; was he that narrow-minded, that it should come as such a shock? No, he realized—it was the secrecy. Hutch had been keeping secrets from him from the beginning. The thought made him physically ill.

Hutch waited, tense; when no answer was forthcoming, he knew he’d been right to force this conversation before they went any further. He felt scared, but also determined. Starsky had given him a taste of what it could be like between them. He wasn’t about to give that up without a fight.

“Not a lot of men, Starsky. Not often—not usually, in fact. And not lately. But yes, I’ve been with a man before. It doesn’t change who I am.” He fell silent, could almost hear the wheels turning in Starsky’s head, inches away on the pillow.

“But you’re not—”

Hutch grimaced, “Not what? A fag? Is that what you were going to say?” He was surprised to find that it hurt as much as it did.

“Well, you’re not. No matter what word you use.”

“What, you think you can see it from the outside?”

“No! I—” Starsky drew a breath, trying to stay calm. “You woulda told me.” It sounded like a challenge.

_We were really close. How could he’ve been gay without my knowing it?_

“You know why I didn’t.”

Silence, from the man beside him, and Hutch knew his partner was hearing the same thing he was. Remembering the same words. Starsky saying, bitterly, _What are we s’posed to say to her? ‘We regret to inform you that your husband was murdered, and we also regret to inform you that he was gay.’_ Then later, Hutch asking him, _What would you have said if he’d told you?_ And Starsky’s morose answer, _I don’t know._

He could feel the tension in Starsky’s body, knew that Starsky was working through it, trying to decide whether or not to get mad, and how mad to get. It was a betrayal of me and thee, plain and simple. But Hutch had had his reasons, and Starsky knew them; maybe he would understand. Hutch held his breath, waiting.

At last, Starsky’s voice came, small and confused. “Who? I mean... anyone I know?”

Hutch breathed again. “No. No one you know “ He knew what Starsky was thinking—what it would be only natural for him to be thinking. Had Hutch and John Blaine...? “I haven’t been with another man since I joined the force.”

“Why?” Starsky blurted.

“Well, at first, too risky. Wasn’t worth losing my job. Then, later, I had other things to lose.” His throat drew tight, and he turned his head slightly, let his cheek rest, very gently, against the dark curls beside him.

Starsky absorbed that. Finally Hutch heard him swallow. “Aw, Hutch, couldn’t you’ve told me?”

“I didn’t think it mattered, Starsk—it was before I’d met you. And then when Blaine died... I was scared to tell you. I didn’t want to do anything that would make you think less of me.”

“I wouldn’t have.”

“But I didn’t know that.”

Starsky knew he was right. He’d had more than a year to come to terms with John Blaine’s death, and his secrets. He had come to terms with it. But immediately after the fact—he remembered some of the things he’d said and cringed, thinking now what Hutch must have been feeling, hearing him talk like that. “Maybe you ought to think less of me,” he said glumly.

“I know you came to understand that it didn’t really matter, didn’t change who he was to you. In fact, I thought about telling you, a while after that. But that was about the time I realized there was another reason I’d been afraid to broach the subject.”

Hutch couldn’t help the tenderness in his voice. Starsky was being so brave, so brave for him. Hutch could feel him trembling, could feel him fighting to stay calm, to understand, to accept the things Hutch was telling him.

Starsky didn’t say anything for a while. But after a minute or so he leaned his head against Hutch’s, taking strength from the close contact, giving it.

Finally, Hutch spoke. “You were right, Starsk. It’s not as casual as somebody having a bad cold.”

“Hmm...what?” Starsky was surprised to realize that the warmth of Hutch in his bed and the smell of his friend’s hair had nearly lulled him to sleep in the middle of what was possibly the most important conversation of his life. In the course of an hour, he had gone from drugged sleep to stunned surprise, from being more turned on than he ever had been to this state of emotion he didn’t quite know how to name. He felt raw and uncertain and euphoric, and his pain medication had worn off. It was all catching up with him.

Hutch chuckled a little, a sound Starsky wanted to hold close to his heart. lt’d been too long since he’d heard it. “A man preferring a man is not as casual as somebody having a bad cold.” Do you remember saying that? And what did I do but tempt fate, talking about _tendencies_ , and what a good kisser you weren’t. Soon as I said it I wanted to bite my tongue.”

“Woulda been a waste,” Starsky murmured.

Hutch turned his head until his lips were pressed against Starsky’s throat, his nose buried in the thick curls. Kissed him gently. “It’s okay, buddy. You’re wiped out. We’ll talk more tomorrow—we’ve got time now.” He inched closer until they were touching again from shoulder to ankle. He wanted to pull Starsky into his arms but was reluctant to put any more strain on him. Tomorrow, he told his over sensitized body, as it responded predictably to the smell and feel of Starsky. The worst was over. They’d be all right now, one way or another.

Exhaustion was catching up with Hutch, too. This was the first time he’d actually touched head to pillow in days. What little sleep he’d stolen had been catnaps in hospital lounge chairs, or in the passenger seat of Dobey’s car. He knew he couldn’t sleep here. For his own sanity, as well as Starsky’s health and the nurse’s sensibilities, he couldn’t sleep here. Too much danger in allowing himself to hold Starsky while they slept, to breathe the scent of him and let himself hope when nothing was resolved between them.

Can’t sleep here, he thought, as he breathed that scent and his eyes drifted closed.

“Hutch?”

“Yeah, Starsk?”

“Got a question.” Starsky frowned slightly. His words slurred with the effort to stay awake.

Hutch lifted his hand from where it had found its way around Starsky’s middle, and smoothed the worried forehead. “What is it?”

“Did I miss it?”

He looked distressed, though his eyes were still closed; Hutch managed to wake up a little more. “Did you miss what, babe?”

Starsky’s frown deepened. “Step three.”

Hutch’s hand went still where it had been combing lazily through the soft curls. He drew a breath, casting memory back to his hastily-spoken confession. Step three? What was step three? And then he remembered.

Step one: he’d said he wanted to kiss Starsky again, the foremost thing in his mind. Then he’d said, I want to sleep with you, just sleep. All night, with our heads on the same pillow.

And if that was Starsky’s step two, then step three was, I want to undress you and—

Hutch felt that crazy, uncontrollable urge to laugh again. It bubbled up, threatened to get out. He realized he was grinning like an insane person and decided he didn’t care—it was worth being insane to feel the flooding, overwhelming relief and joy that welled up with the laughter. He kissed Starsky on the forehead, on the cheek, unable to stop himself—hugged him as best he could without risk of hurting him. A little of the laughter did get out, finally, but it was all right. Starsky, eyes still closed, was smiling, too.

“No,” he managed finally. “No, babe, it’s okay. You didn’t miss it. I promise, you didn’t miss it.”

Starsky looked relieved. “Good. That’s good.”

“Don’t you worry,” Hutch growled in his ear. “We’ll take care of step three tomorrow, if you’re still up for it.”

“Yeah. Okay, Hutch, s’good. Tomorrow.” A pause. “Hey, Hutch?”

Hutch smiled against his neck. “Yeah?” It came out sounding muffled, but he didn’t want to move one centimeter.

“R’mind me f’somethin tomorrow, willya?”

“You got it, buddy. What is it?”

Starsky sighed, shifting under him, rubbing his cheek against Hutch’s hair. “R’mind me to tell you that I love you.”

Hutch drew in a sharp breath, held it for a dizzying instant.

Starsky’s skin, warm against his lips. Starsky’s heart beating under his hand. The smell of his hair and the feel of him, compact and muscular, an awareness that sank through every nerve in his body. The taste of his skin, where Hutch kissed him, just pressing his mouth to the pulse as if he could breathe Starsky in, like essential air he needed to live. And the sound of Starsky’s words, sleepy, almost inaudible against his hair—breaking him down and putting him back together again, piece by piece.

For a long time, he lay there listening to Starsky sleep, listening to him breathe. He thought about the future. He let himself feel what he felt about the words Starsky had given him, the gift. He thought about love, and how it was something that so many people talked about, so many people pretended to understand—and how sad it was that none of them would ever really understand the joy that sang in him tonight, this moment.

When he couldn’t stay awake any more, Hutch closed his eyes. Nuzzled into the soft, warm space behind Starsky’s ear, inhaling until he thought he’d pass out.

“Tomorrow,” he whispered, like a talisman.

~ end ~

**Author's Note:**

> It's been so long since I read this, I wasn't sure what to expect. Apparently, POV wasn't something I worried about in 1997...


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